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[](http://badge.fury.io/js/sockjs)
SockJS family:
* [SockJS-client](https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-client) JavaScript client library * [SockJS-node](https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-node) Node.js server * [SockJS-erlang](https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-erlang) Erlang server * [SockJS-tornado](https://github.com/MrJoes/sockjs-tornado) Python/Tornado server * [vert.x](https://github.com/eclipse/vert.x) Java/vert.x server
Work in progress:
* [SockJS-ruby](https://github.com/nyarly/sockjs-ruby) * [SockJS-netty](https://github.com/cgbystrom/sockjs-netty) * [SockJS-gevent](https://github.com/sdiehl/sockjs-gevent) ([and a fork](https://github.com/njoyce/sockjs-gevent)) * [pyramid-SockJS](https://github.com/fafhrd91/pyramid_sockjs) * [wildcloud-websockets](https://github.com/wildcloud/wildcloud-websockets) * [SockJS-cyclone](https://github.com/flaviogrossi/sockjs-cyclone) * [SockJS-twisted](https://github.com/Fugiman/sockjs-twisted/) * [wai-SockJS](https://github.com/Palmik/wai-sockjs) * [SockJS-perl](https://github.com/vti/sockjs-perl) * [SockJS-go](https://github.com/igm/sockjs-go/)
What is SockJS?===============
SockJS is a JavaScript library (for browsers) that provides a WebSocket-likeobject. SockJS gives you a coherent, cross-browser, Javascript APIwhich creates a low latency, full duplex, cross-domain communicationchannel between the browser and the web server, with WebSockets or without.This necessitates the use of a server, which this is one version of, for Node.js.
SockJS-node server==================
SockJS-node is a Node.js server side counterpart of[SockJS-client browser library](https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-client)written in CoffeeScript.
To install `sockjs-node` run:
npm install sockjs
A simplified echo SockJS server could look more or less like:
```javascriptvar http = require('http');var sockjs = require('sockjs');
var echo = sockjs.createServer();echo.on('connection', function(conn) { conn.on('data', function(message) { conn.write(message); }); conn.on('close', function() {});});
var server = http.createServer();echo.installHandlers(server, {prefix:'/echo'});server.listen(9999, '0.0.0.0');```
(Take look at[examples](https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-node/tree/master/examples/echo)directory for a complete version.)
Subscribe to[SockJS mailing list](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/sockjs) fordiscussions and support.
SockJS-node API---------------
The API design is based on common Node APIs like the[Streams API](http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.5.8/api/streams.html) or the[Http.Server API](http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.5.8/api/http.html#http.Server).
### Server class
SockJS module is generating a `Server` class, similar to[Node.js http.createServer](http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.5.8/api/http.html#http.createServer)module.
```javascriptvar sockjs_server = sockjs.createServer(options);```
Where `options` is a hash which can contain:
<dl><dt>sockjs_url (string)</dt><dd>Transports which don't support cross-domain communication natively ('eventsource' to name one) use an iframe trick. A simple page is served from the SockJS server (using its foreign domain) and is placed in an invisible iframe. Code run from this iframe doesn't need to worry about cross-domain issues, as it's being run from domain local to the SockJS server. This iframe also does need to load SockJS javascript client library, and this option lets you specify its url (if you're unsure, point it to <a href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/sockjs-client@1/dist/sockjs.min.js"> the latest minified SockJS client release</a>, this is the default). You must explicitly specify this url on the server side for security reasons - we don't want the possibility of running any foreign javascript within the SockJS domain (aka cross site scripting attack). Also, sockjs javascript library is probably already cached by the browser - it makes sense to reuse the sockjs url you're using in normally.</dd>
<dt>prefix (string regex)</dt><dd>A url prefix for the server. All http requests which paths begins with selected prefix will be handled by SockJS. All other requests will be passed through, to previously registered handlers.</dd>
<dt>response_limit (integer)</dt><dd>Most streaming transports save responses on the client side and don't free memory used by delivered messages. Such transports need to be garbage-collected once in a while. `response_limit` sets a minimum number of bytes that can be send over a single http streaming request before it will be closed. After that client needs to open new request. Setting this value to one effectively disables streaming and will make streaming transports to behave like polling transports. The default value is 128K.</dd>
<dt>websocket (boolean)</dt><dd>Some load balancers don't support websockets. This option can be used to disable websockets support by the server. By default websockets are enabled.</dd>
<dt>jsessionid (boolean or function)</dt><dd>Some hosting providers enable sticky sessions only to requests that have JSESSIONID cookie set. This setting controls if the server should set this cookie to a dummy value. By default setting JSESSIONID cookie is disabled. More sophisticated behaviour can be achieved by supplying a function.</dd>
<dt>log (function(severity, message))</dt><dd>It's quite useful, especially for debugging, to see some messages printed by a SockJS-node library. This is done using this `log` function, which is by default set to `console.log`. If this behaviour annoys you for some reason, override `log` setting with a custom handler. The following `severities` are used: `debug` (miscellaneous logs), `info` (requests logs), `error` (serious errors, consider filing an issue).</dd>
<dt>heartbeat_delay (milliseconds)</dt><dd>In order to keep proxies and load balancers from closing long running http requests we need to pretend that the connection is active and send a heartbeat packet once in a while. This setting controls how often this is done. By default a heartbeat packet is sent every 25 seconds. </dd>
<dt>disconnect_delay (milliseconds)</dt><dd>The server sends a `close` event when a client receiving connection have not been seen for a while. This delay is configured by this setting. By default the `close` event will be emitted when a receiving connection wasn't seen for 5 seconds. </dd>
<dt>disable_cors (boolean)</dt><dd>Enabling this option will prevent <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-origin_resource_sharing">CORS</a> headers from being included in the HTTP response. Can be used when the sockjs client is known to be connecting from the same origin as the sockjs server.</dd></dl>
### Server instance
Once you have create `Server` instance you can hook it to the[http.Server instance](http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.5.8/api/http.html#http.createServer).
```javascriptvar http_server = http.createServer();sockjs_server.installHandlers(http_server, options);http_server.listen(...);```
Where `options` can overshadow options given when creating `Server`instance.
`Server` instance is an[EventEmitter](http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.4.10/api/events.html#events.EventEmitter),and emits following event:
<dl><dt>Event: connection (connection)</dt><dd>A new connection has been successfully opened.</dd></dl>
All http requests that don't go under the path selected by `prefix`will remain unanswered and will be passed to previously registeredhandlers. You must install your custom http handlers before calling`installHandlers`.
### Connection instance
A `Connection` instance supports[Node Stream API](http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.5.8/api/streams.html) andhas following methods and properties:
<dl><dt>Property: readable (boolean)</dt><dd>Is the stream readable?</dd>
<dt>Property: writable (boolean)</dt><dd>Is the stream writable?</dd>
<dt>Property: remoteAddress (string)</dt><dd>Last known IP address of the client.</dd>
<dt>Property: remotePort (number)</dt><dd>Last known port number of the client.</dd>
<dt>Property: address (object)</dt><dd>Hash with 'address' and 'port' fields.</dd>
<dt>Property: headers (object)</dt><dd>Hash containing various headers copied from last receiving request on that connection. Exposed headers include: `origin`, `referer` and `x-forwarded-for` (and friends). We explicitly do not grant access to `cookie` header, as using it may easily lead to security issues (for details read the section "Authorisation").</dd>
<dt>Property: url (string)</dt><dd><a href="http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.4.10/api/http.html#request.url">Url</a> property copied from last request.</dd>
<dt>Property: pathname (string)</dt><dd>`pathname` from parsed url, for convenience.</dd>
<dt>Property: prefix (string)</dt><dd>Prefix of the url on which the request was handled.</dd>
<dt>Property: protocol (string)</dt><dd>Protocol used by the connection. Keep in mind that some protocols are indistinguishable - for example "xhr-polling" and "xdr-polling".</dd>
<dt>Property: readyState (integer)</dt><dd>Current state of the connection: 0-connecting, 1-open, 2-closing, 3-closed.</dd>
<dt>write(message)</dt><dd>Sends a message over opened connection. A message must be a non-empty string. It's illegal to send a message after the connection was closed (either after 'close' or 'end' method or 'close' event).</dd>
<dt>close([code], [reason])</dt><dd>Asks the remote client to disconnect. 'code' and 'reason' parameters are optional and can be used to share the reason of disconnection.</dd>
<dt>end()</dt><dd>Asks the remote client to disconnect with default 'code' and 'reason' values.</dd>
</dl>
A `Connection` instance emits the following events:
<dl><dt>Event: data (message)</dt><dd>A message arrived on the connection. Message is a unicode string.</dd>
<dt>Event: close ()</dt><dd>Connection was closed. This event is triggered exactly once for every connection.</dd></dl>
For example:
```javascriptsockjs_server.on('connection', function(conn) { console.log('connection' + conn); conn.on('close', function() { console.log('close ' + conn); }); conn.on('data', function(message) { console.log('message ' + conn, message); });});```
### Footnote
A fully working echo server does need a bit more boilerplate (tohandle requests unanswered by SockJS), see the[`echo` example](https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-node/tree/master/examples/echo)for a complete code.
### Examples
If you want to see samples of running code, take a look at:
* [./examples/echo](https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-node/tree/master/examples/echo) directory, which contains a full example of a echo server. * [./examples/test_server](https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-node/tree/master/examples/test_server) a standard SockJS test server.
Connecting to SockJS-node without the client--------------------------------------------
Although the main point of SockJS it to enable browser-to-serverconnectivity, it is possible to connect to SockJS from an externalapplication. Any SockJS server complying with 0.3 protocol doessupport a raw WebSocket url. The raw WebSocket url for the test serverlooks like:
* ws://localhost:8081/echo/websocket
You can connect any WebSocket RFC 6455 compliant WebSocket client tothis url. This can be a command line client, external application,third party code or even a browser (though I don't know why you wouldwant to do so).
Note: This endpoint will *not send any heartbeat packets*.
Deployment and load balancing-----------------------------
There are two issues that need to be considered when planning anon-trivial SockJS-node deployment: WebSocket-compatible load balancerand sticky sessions (aka session affinity).
### WebSocket compatible load balancer
Often WebSockets don't play nicely with proxies and load balancers.Deploying a SockJS server behind Nginx or Apache could be painful.
Fortunately recent versions of an excellent load balancer[HAProxy](http://haproxy.1wt.eu/) are able to proxy WebSocketconnections. We propose to put HAProxy as a front line load balancerand use it to split SockJS traffic from normal HTTP data. Take a lookat the sample[SockJS HAProxy configuration](https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-node/blob/master/examples/haproxy.cfg).
The config also shows how to use HAproxy balancing to split trafficbetween multiple Node.js servers. You can also do balancing using dnsnames.
### Sticky sessions
If you plan deploying more than one SockJS server, you must make surethat all HTTP requests for a single session will hit the same server.SockJS has two mechanisms that can be useful to achieve that:
* Urls are prefixed with server and session id numbers, like: `/resource/<server_number>/<session_id>/transport`. This is useful for load balancers that support prefix-based affinity (HAProxy does). * `JSESSIONID` cookie is being set by SockJS-node. Many load balancers turn on sticky sessions if that cookie is set. This technique is derived from Java applications, where sticky sessions are often necessary. HAProxy does support this method, as well as some hosting providers, for example CloudFoundry. In order to enable this method on the client side, please supply a `cookie:true` option to SockJS constructor.
Development and testing-----------------------
If you want to work on SockJS-node source code, you need to clone thegit repo and follow these steps. First you need to installdependencies:
cd sockjs-node npm install npm install --dev ln -s .. node_modules/sockjs
You're ready to compile CoffeeScript:
make build
If compilation succeeds you may want to test if your changes pass allthe tests. Currently, there are two separate test suites. For both ofthem you need to start a SockJS-node test server (by default listeningon port 8081):
make test_server
### SockJS-protocol Python tests
To run it run something like:
cd sockjs-protocol make test_deps ./venv/bin/python sockjs-protocol.py
For details see[SockJS-protocol README](https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-protocol#readme).
### SockJS-client QUnit tests
You need to start a second web server (by default listening on 8080)that is serving various static html and javascript files:
cd sockjs-client make test
At that point you should have two web servers running: sockjs-node on8081 and sockjs-client on 8080. When you open the browser on[http://localhost:8080/](http://localhost:8080/) you should be ablerun the QUnit tests against your sockjs-node server.
For details see[SockJS-client README](https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-client#readme).
Additionally, if you're doing more serious development consider using`make serve`, which will automatically the server when you modify thesource code.
Various issues and design considerations----------------------------------------
### Authorisation
SockJS-node does not expose cookies to the application. This is donedeliberately as using cookie-based authorisation with SockJS simplydoesn't make sense and will lead to security issues.
Cookies are a contract between a browser and an http server, and areidentified by a domain name. If a browser has a cookie set forparticular domain, it will pass it as a part of all http requests tothe host. But to get various transports working, SockJS uses a middleman- an iframe hosted from target SockJS domain. That means the serverwill receive requests from the iframe, and not from the realdomain. The domain of an iframe is the same as the SockJS domain. Theproblem is that any website can embed the iframe and communicate withit - and request establishing SockJS connection. Using cookies forauthorisation in this scenario will result in granting full access toSockJS communication with your website from any website. This is aclassic CSRF attack.
Basically - cookies are not suited for SockJS model. If you want toauthorise a session - provide a unique token on a page, send it as afirst thing over SockJS connection and validate it on the serverside. In essence, this is how cookies work.
### Deploying SockJS on Heroku
Long polling is known to cause problems on Heroku, but[workaround for SockJS is available](https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-node/issues/57#issuecomment-5242187).
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